In The Fade, At the Pursuit of Nazis

Diane Kruger ©DR

In The Fade by director Fatih Akin portrays a woman who, after a bomb attack, will suffers the loss of her family and seek revenge by hunting a couple of Nazis.

In The Fade (Aus dem Nichts) by the German director with Turkish origins Fatih Akin is a suspense film carried by Diane Kruger‘s formidable artistic performance as an ordinary wife and mother, a German whose life collapses when a bomb explodes at the office of her Kurdish husband, killing husband and son. The alleged perpetrators are arrested: a young couple of neo-Nazis who appear to have perpetrated a racist crime.

Katja & Rocco

Violents Nazi groups

Through the terrible fate of Katja (Diane Kruger), In The Fade evokes the existence of violent Nazi groups and their networking throughout Europe. Katja’s husband Nuri Sekerci (Numan Acar) perishes with his son Rocco in a bomb attack in Hamburg Turkish borough. Katja has the intuition that this barbaric act was committed by the Nazis because she saw the woman – a German – who dropped the bomb, lying on the luggage rack of a bicycle. However, the police first search Nuri’s past, a former cannabis trafficker.

Katja & Nuri (Numan Acar) ©DR

A highly topical matter

A couple of Nazis are eventually arrested thanks to the denunciation of the husband’s father, who found in his garage the elements of a bomb. Justice being powerless to render the justice she expects, the widow refuses the verdict of acquittal and goes hunting the Nazis in Greece to take revenge. She will do it in a tragic way!
In In the Shade, Fatih Akin’s camera deals with a highly topical theme – besides, the manufacture of a bomb is particularly detailed… The film is articulated around three chapters: Mourning, Justice and the Sea. The Mourning is shot with rain falling to accentuate the depression overwhelming Katja. In the chapter of Justice, the suspense is entangled in the courtroom with its protagonists – accused, lawyers, judges – always sitting. In the Sea, the pursuit in Greece and the revenge take us to some very beautiful images of sea and nature.

©DR

Best Actress Award

Alas, the chapters are linked rather mechanically, without the film exploring the psychology of the murderer couple: the girl remains silent, the husband keeps a marble face. The impact of the bomb attack on the Kurdish community – though aimed at – is also not mentioned, which deprives the film of a political dimension in a Costa-Gavras way that it could have claimed.
In any case, the extraordinary performance of the beautiful German Diane Kruger should be worth the Best Actress Award!

Fatih Akin & Diane Kruger ©DR

Fatih Akin has distinguished himself in the three largest 7th Art festivals in the World: Golden Bear in Berlin for Head On in 2004, Best Screenplay Award at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival for De l’autre Côté and his comedy Soul Kitchen won in 2009 the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.

In The Fade (Aus Dem Nichts)
A film by Fatih Akin
Color – 1h46

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